


Pet Names

by Ami_Bel



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ami_Bel/pseuds/Ami_Bel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cyrus tries to think of a pet name for Giovanni to disassociate him from his abusive past, with hilarious and wholly unhelpful suggestions from his sorta-friends, the other Team bosses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pet Names

Cyrus sighed and drummed his fingers against the table. He sat straight in his chair, elbow on the desk and head in his hand as he stared at the piece of paper in front on him. He picked up his pen, twirled it in his hands and then began writing again.

He knew that she had made the remark in jest, but that didn’t stop him for taking it seriously. Perhaps she was right, in some way. That if he had a pet name for Giovanni, it would open himself up to being more receptive of affection. He did want to increase the intimacy in his relationship. In his mind, he was the only one to blame for the distance between them.

He could tell Giovanni was tired of it, tired of him and the way he’d withdraw into himself whenever he was touched, or how he’d flinch whenever a hand reached out to him, or the way he had to know every possible exit whenever they went someplace new, or how, like a beaten dog, he’d avert his eyes whenever he felt threatened.

There was no changing what he learned in order to survive the misused trust of his childhood; but as an adult, he could at least try to overcome it. He wanted to, desperately so, if not for himself then at least for the man he loved.

The offhand comment that he use a nickname set him about to thinking of deeper things. With a code word, in this case, a pet name, he could try to train himself to use word association to separate his past from the present. If he could trick his mind into listening to his heart…

He sighed again as he stared at the small list of words he was able to come up with. There were the traditional ones, like ‘love’ and ‘sweetheart’ and, obviously, ‘pet’. There were also more recent ones he had overheard among others, such as the parental ‘honey’ or the seemingly condescending ‘sweetie pie’. However, none of them rolled off his tongue, nor did they seem appropriate when thinking of his Giovanni. His Giovanni… His sudden possessiveness made him shiver.

Oh no, no, no. He was getting ahead of himself again.

‘Don’t trust too easy, Cyrus’, he could hear his father say. 'People only live to disappoint you.’

He wouldn’t, refused, to listen to him. That was then and this was now. He set his pen on the paper again. What was that word he heard Dawn use whenever there was a guy she liked? Bae?

He almost wrote it down but stopped, as he gritted his teeth. Absolutely not! He considered it repulsive and instinctively shuddered. A misspelled word, one letter short of being proper and so far removed from its original definition! He would not use any such mangled language to befoul Giovanni’s ears. His mouth refused to speak such a sin!

In fact, the next time he saw Dawn, he would lecture her good about the sanctity of proper language usage. A girl her age should know better and he decided setting her straight would be a kindness she should be thankful for. She would be getting the benefit of his many years of grammar school, and condensed into only a few hours at that! She should be so lucky.

He let out a small hum as he looked at the list again. It was still too short and the choices were too homogeneous. The more he stared at it, the more every word sounded like, looked like, and tasted like every other word. In one way or another, they all meant ‘sweet’.

His Giovanni was definitely not sweet.

He twirled the pen again and sighed. Then what was he? He wasn’t sour, or bitter or salty… He was… robust. Full. Bold. Yet subdued… Like…

He wrote down another word then let out an exasperated growl. In a burst of anger, he crumpled up the sheet and threw it over his shoulder.

“Did you just hit me with a paper ball? Is this how you welcome me home?”

Cyrus gasped and stood from his chair so fast, that it almost fell over.

“Giovanni! I’m sorry! No, it’s not, I didn’t mean to, I was working on- Wait, please don’t read it!”

Giovanni had caught it perfectly after it bounced off his face and was now unfurling it, curious as to what the hell it was that would make Cyrus Akagi mad.

Cyrus stared expectantly at him and backed himself into the table. This had happened before and he knew what to expect. His pulse began to race, his chest began to pound. His instincts were taking over despite the fact his mind was telling him to calm down.

Giovanni looked over at Cyrus as soon as he began to hear him breathing. He took off his jacket and tie and laid them over the couch before taking a seat himself. He figured he might as well settle in while dealing with this.

“I’m not mad, Cyrus. You don’t need to get so worked up. What is this, anyway? Come on, sit down.”

Cyrus took a small steps and sat a carefully estimated distance away, yet beside him. He flinched and let out a small whine as Giovanni reached for him and pulled himself closer. He could feel his heartbeat now, and was sure that Giovanni could hear his as well, fast and panicked as it was beating, telling him to run.

“It-it-it…” He clenched his fists and tightened every muscle in his body in frustration at himself. Damn it all! His shaking had become so bad that he couldn’t get the words out. He hated himself when he became like this. He had to wonder, no, he knew, Giovanni hated him too.

Giovanni reached an arm around Cyrus’ small, thin frame and began stroking his hair. Even as he felt him recoil from the touch, he didn’t stop or pull his hand away. He learned how to deal with this now. Cyrus would calm down in his own time and there wasn’t anything he could really do to help, but there was a whole lot he could do to make it worse. To keep Cyrus from eating himself alive over whatever nightmare flashed through his mind, the best thing Giovanni could do was to simply act natural.

“It’s a list,” he guessed he was trying to say. “Of just what, nicknames?”

“Da-Da-Dawn, su..ggested that I, that we…” Cyrus shook with each word as he forced himself to speak. He tried to soften himself under Giovanni’s touch. He braced himself for a hit even though he knew it would never come. Giovanni would never hit him, but why wouldn’t his body believe him.

“Oh, you still see the kid,” he asked off-handedly. He didn’t really care one way or the other but he did think it… unusual, to say the least, that Cyrus would care to keep up with the child who foiled his plans. It’s not like he himself sent Red birthday cards every year. He didn’t wish for the little shit to freeze to death on Mt. Silver either but hey, he wouldn’t exactly cry at the news if he did.

“She-she-she said, we’re… like sib-sib-siblings. She in… vites herself to my… place.”

Cyrus let out a sigh of relief. His shaking was lessening. If he just remembered to breathe, he might get at least a decent sentence out.

“She says, since I’m… older, I have to help her with her school work. And because she’s younger, I get the benefit of her… presence. I doubt our dynamic has any semblance to that of real siblings.”

Giovanni snorted in laughter. So that’s what it was. What a little trickster.

“No, that sounds about right,” he smiled. “Younger siblings are just there to bug the shit out of you and test your patience. Alright… So this is the list that you came up with?”

Cyrus still held his head down and refused to look him in the eyes but nodded. “It’s not… a good job. So please… just…”

“No, you worked hard on this,” he teased. “Let’s try these out.”

Giovanni cleared his throat as he improvised a few lines.

“So how was your day, ‘sweetie pie’?”

Cyrus furrowed his brows and a surprisingly expressive frown crossed his face. That one was a definite ‘no’.

“It was… fine, ‘honey’…’

Giovanni stared straight ahead as he tried to keep a straight face. Hearing Cyrus’s monotone voice attempting to sweet talk him was confusing. Was this funny, or sad? It was hysterical but he was still too confused to laugh.

"I’m just going to go down the list in my head,” he decided.

“I apologize. I know I’m not… I do not have the vocal training to convey the proper inflection needed to-”

“I get that, Cyrus,” he nodded. Thank Arceus Cyrus was honest with himself. Now if only he weren’t so paranoid.

“Alright, so… ‘honey’, ‘sweetie’, and everything ending in ‘pie’ is a no. And then…” Giovanni stared at him with his mouth slightly ajar in astonishment.

“Cyrus, does this say ‘Sugar Daddy Boss’?”

“Maxie said it was a sort of term of endearment,” he explained. Or at least, he remembered Maxie using it when referring to Giovanni. “I assumed it fit the criteria as it had the word ‘sugar’ in it, and therefore meant something along the lines of you being ‘sweet’.”

Giovanni stared at him then back to the paper. Did he really want to explain to him what exactly it meant? Is this what he got for wearing that sweater Maxie made for him around the house on lazy days? He cocked his head and shrugged. He didn’t exactly have a problem with it but…

“It’s fine, just not in public.”

“Understood.” Cyrus turned and looked at him with a hopeful expression in his eyes. “So then I should call you ‘Sugar Daddy Boss’ when I want to convey fondness and familiarity?”

Immediately, Giovanni reconsidered. It hadn’t sounded that bad in his head until he heard it aloud.

“… Let’s just save it for when I’m actually wearing the sweater. Also, don’t listen to Maxie.”

“I feel as if this is only frustrating you…”

Giovanni put his hand on Cyrus’ shoulder and stroked his jawline softly with his thumb.

“I’ll tell you when I’m frustrated. Let’s keep going. Next… ‘Dude’ and ‘Bro’?”

“I’ve heard Archie use it quite often. I’m not certain about ‘dude’ but I know ‘bro’ is short for ‘brother’ and, if you can forgive the possibly incestuous undertones, I thought the familial connotation would qualify as ‘romantic’, or at least convey ‘closeness’.”

“Cyrus, never listen to Archie. On anything. Even if you have to ask him for the time, get a second opinion.”

It wasn’t that Giovanni had a low opinion of Archie, it was just between him and Maxie, they were both the kind of people who had to take three left turns to make a right.

“Well, the next two are French words I’ve heard exchanged between Lysandre and Augustine. Are they… credible?”

Giovanni thought it over as he rolled the words around in his head.

“‘Mon cher’ and ‘mi petit’…”

“They’re no good either,” Cyrus concluded. “Giovanni, I’ sorry. I wasted your time. I just wanted… I thought… it would help if… If I could… If I cou-cou-could…”

Giovanni sighed. He was right about one thing. This was beginning to frustrate him. It wasn’t Cyrus’ panic attacks, or his misguided attempts at intimacy. It was what sent him into these attacks, usually his assuming he knew how people felt about him, believing he was despised and refusing to listen to anything that said otherwise.

“You don’t have to have some pet name for me, Cyrus. Just my name is fine. So don’t-”

“If I could tell myself that you aren’t him,” he yelled as he forced the words out. He heaved as tears streamed down his face. He had never said anything like that before, never told Giovanni about him, never brought him up. It was an unspoken taboo, until now.

Cyrus sat still, not knowing what reaction he would receive from Giovanni, but bracing himself for the torrential destruction that he had come to expect from his father.

It took Giovanni a full minute of silence for Cyrus’ words to register in his mind. The pet name shtick was his way of trying. Of trying to move on from his past. Of trying to move their relationship forward. Of trying to heal himself in some small way, and for… not only for, but with him.

The Cyrus Akagi, anti-social, nihilistic, misanthropic recluse, of all people.

He dropped the paper on the coffee table and brought his hand to his mouth. He thought of speaking but instead, just smiled and pushed Cyrus fully onto the couch.

Even as he felt him shake in fear, he made no pause as kissed him. First a small peck, then a bolder kiss as he forced his lips apart and used his tongue.

“Gi-Gi-Gio-… What’re you… please…”

He lessened his hold upon him but wore a smile that was the most troubling thing Cyrus had ever seen. This was the smile of the mafioso that ran Team Rocket. This was when he should be panicking. This was most certainly the appropriate time to plan his escape. Instead, Cyrus stared back at him, transfixed and aroused.

“French is alright but it’s not the true language of love,” he said, with a lick of his lips. “How about tonight, I teach you some Italian?”

**Author's Note:**

> A gift prompt from Tumblr that I'm also posting here. I'm not the biggest ACS fan but this interested me.


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